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Monthly Archives: October 2013

When clients in my Denver City Rolfing practice ask about insurance coverage for Rolfing, I encourage them to talk to their providers. While the new Affordable Care Act, ACA does not specifically mention Complementary Care services such as Chiropractic, Massage Therapy, Acupuncture and Rolfing. It does provide an opportunity for healthcare consumers to start asking their providers to cover these important preventative care modalities.

Healthcare providers now must compete in the new Healthcare Exchange Marketplace and are looking for new incentives to attract you and you’re healthcare dollars. Now is the time you use your economic leverage to start demanding that Healthcare Insurance companies cover the Complementary/Alternative Medicine services so many of us count on for our own personal wellness.

However, until such time that these services are specifically covered in the ACA, we should all be aware of The Healthcare Law’s 10-Essential Healthcare Benefits.

Outpatient care

1. Ambulatory Patient Services

This is the most common form of health care, often called outpatient care. You walk into a doctor’s office, get treated and then walk out. Nearly all health insurance plans already provide this coverage. Details about the plans’ networks and access to doctors will vary, but the law says the networks’ size must be “sufficient.”

Rx benefits

2. Prescription Drugs

Many plans offer drug coverage only as an option at extra cost. But under the law, all individual and small-group plans will cover at least one drug in every category and class in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, the official publication of approved medications in this country. Drug costs will also be counted toward out-of-pocket caps on medical expenses.

ER coverage

3. Emergency Care

You go to a hospital emergency room with a sudden and serious condition, such as the symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. The emergency visit is already covered under most plans. But under the reform law, emergency room visits do not require preauthorization, and you cannot be charged extra for an out-of-network visit.

Therapy visits

4. Mental Health Services

Many plans don’t cover mental or behavioral health services, but that will change under the law. Patients may be billed around $40 per session. In some states, though, coverage may be limited to a set number of therapy visits per year.

Inpatient care

5. Hospitalization

Under the law, your insurer must cover your hospitalization, though you may have to pay 20 percent of the bill or more if you haven’t reached your out-of-pocket limit. Some hospitals charge $2,000 a day for room and board alone, and $20,000 with medical services, so those bills can soar. This year, medical costs will help bankrupt 650,000 American households — including many who thought they had decent insurance until diagnosed with a serious illness.

Therapeutic care

6. Rehabilitative and Habilitative Services

If you are injured or become ill, many plans today cover rehabilitation therapies to relieve pain and help you regain your ability to speak, walk or work. The plans often cover medical equipment, too, including canes, knee braces, walkers and wheelchairs. Few plans, however, address the reform law’s essential requirement for “habilitative” services, which are therapies to help overcome long-term disabilities, such as those that accompany a disease like multiple sclerosis.

Physicals, vaccines and well visits

7. Preventive and Wellness Services

Many experts believe this benefit could help rein in the nation’s rising medical costs. The idea is to get people to see doctors and make healthier choices before they get sick and run up medical bills. For example, you may be allowed a free “wellness visit” annually with your doctor to discuss your health. Beyond that, the law instructs insurers to provide all of the 50 preventive services recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force at no extra cost.

Lab work and scans

8. Laboratory Services

While the law codifies the full set of preventive screening tests — including prostate exams and Pap smears — that individual and small-group insurers must cover, you can still be billed for “diagnostic” tests that doctors order when you have symptoms of disease. Costs can range from $20 for a lab test to 30 percent of a magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI).

Dental and vision care for kids

9. Pediatric Care

Under the law, children under age 19 will be able to get their teeth cleaned twice a year, as well as receive X-rays, fillings and medically necessary orthodontia. In addition, children under age 19 will be entitled to an eye exam and one pair of glasses or set of contact lenses a year. Relatively few health plans cover children’s dental or vision services today.

Care for mothers and children

10. Maternity and Newborn Care

The law classifies prenatal care as a preventive service that must be provided at no extra cost. And it requires insurers to cover childbirth as well as the newborn infant’s care. These maternity benefits are a welcome breakthrough for young people, as two-thirds of individual plans have traditionally excluded this type of coverage.

Rolfing is good for endurance athletes. Check out this great article by Heather Hobbs in Active.com. It’s a story of Certified Rolfer, Joshua Malpass working with men and woman who put their bodies to the test and then get Rolfed to keep them in top shape and performance. The Colorado people I see in my Denver City Rolfing practice also know the benefits of Rolfing in their active daily lives.

Malpass’s client Maya, 35, experienced many breakthroughs while receiving her Rolfing? Ten Series. She opted to come in once a week for 10 weeks in the hope that she could reduce the pain she experienced when running and biking.

“Prior to Rolfing , my idea of exercise without pain was slow walking and gentle yoga,” Maya said. “I was a runner and athlete in high school, but I figured my glory days were behind me. I had a desk job and felt tight and stiff. I was plagued by chronic tendonitis and joint pain. It hurt my ankles, knees and hips to run more than a mile. Biking caused my neck and shoulders to ache and my low back to spasm. I just assumed that I had to take it easy or injure myself, I had no idea there was a solution to my pain and discomfort.”

Maya found that each of the 10 sessions was unique and each focused on different areas of the body- knees, hips, feet, shoulders, back etc. Throughout the process, Malpass gave her numerous tips and exercises to retrain her movement patterns and to integrate the Rolfing work. She was excited that Malpass tailored each session towards her goal to begin running again and she particularly enjoyed how Malpass explained what he was doing as he worked. In this way, he helped educate her about her body and her movement patterns so she could prevent future injuries.

Maya was thrilled with the results.

“For the second session, he (Malpass) worked with my feet, ankles and lower legs,” Maya said. “He taught me about all the different bones, muscles and ligaments in my feet and released decades of tension and scar tissue that had build up in my knees, ankles and calves. It (the Rolfing) felt like a deep but comfortable stretch–not painful, just good. Toward the end of the session he assessed my walking and running patterns and taught me how to use my feet and ankles more effectively. He explained that by learning to move the way my body was designed, I would prevent injury and strain.”

Now a healthy triathlete and trail runner, Maya remembers how the second session was really her turning point in recovery. She began to run small distances, increasing gradually and stopping as soon as something hurt. Within two months, Maya was running eight miles with no pain. Three months later, she was still pain-free and completed her first Olympic-distance triathlon. Eleven months later she completed a half- Ironman triathlon and her first marathon.

“Malpass broke down decades of tension, strain, bad posture and poor movement patterns,” Maya said, “and taught me how to use my body more efficiently so I will avoid tendonitis and strains. I look and feel better at 35 than I did at 25.”

Malpass explains that tendonitis, stiffness and joint pain are often easily remedied by simply releasing tension in the fascia, bringing balance back into the body and retraining movement patterns.

“Remember how you felt when you were eight years old?” Malpass asked. “You could jump out of bed and run around outside without pain, stiffness or hesitation. You moved freely and it felt good. My goal with every session is to bring you back to that feeling; to allow you to enjoy movement, to feel great and to continue to strive toward improvement without the fear of injury or pain.”

Many triathletes and marathon runners use Rolfing to speed injury recovery, increase flexibility, improve range of motion and optimize performance. For more information about Rolfing. Metro Denver athletes can contact Will Gallucci, Certified Rolfer, at Denver City Rolfing.com.

I have had the opportunity to work with several children in my Denver City Rolfing practice. The benefits and positive experience of the children and their parents to Rolf Structural Integration is profound. Please take a look at this excellent article by Certified Rolfer Vincent Lee on the history of Rolfing for children and babies.

“Rolfing has a positive impact on the children’s health. Rolfing children at an early age gives them ease with their own bodies and develops confidence in their self image. Adult complaints of chronic backache, neck pain and other physical and emotional stressors can originate from a childhood imbalance.

One of the things children learn from watching us is how we carry ourselves. They naturally imitate their parent’s language, movement and other modes of expression. These patterns can be seen in family photos and are as much a part of a child’s makeup as his or her hair color, height and predisposition to certain hereditary conditions. Rolfing can begin to correct patterns, such as hip imbalances, which may limit the child’s development and mobility.

However, as conscientious parents can be all too painfully aware, that not all children carry their bodies well. Thus, we can come to “read” those timid, tense, or distorted bodies as expressed needs, which are not otherwise being communicated. As parents, one of our concerns is to produce a balanced child or baby. Rolfing is an immediately effective means of addressing this objective.

Dr. Ida P. Rolf, the founder of Rolfing, foresaw that both children and babies can benefit from Rolfing. She worked with a range of childhood complaints from typical childhood traumas from falls, accidents and injuries to birth traumas; to curved spines, twisted legs, and extended abdomens resulting from physical injury, emotional trauma, poor posture and/or disease.

Rolfing for children and babies address these concerns at an early age to give children ease with their own bodies and to allow them to develop the confidence that they carry their own state of grace within them. As their lives are just beginning to unfold there is no way to separate the physical child from his mental and spiritual self. A child who slumps physically slumps mentally and emotionally. Conversely, a child whose body is balanced and who moves gracefully and confidently reflects an inner grace and confidence.

Dr. Rolf’s work with children and babies established that: a dramatic improvement in the children’s and babies’ chronological, psychological and physical course of development can be documented. Parents reported that their children responded with increased confidence and verbal expression; improved self-image and enthusiasm; more self-control and less destructive behavior; more comfortable with their bodies and more physically active.

Early intervention by a Rolfer, who understands children and babies unique needs can make a profound difference in a child’s awareness, comfort level and self-esteem. The importance of receiving loving supportive touch, in and of itself, is immeasurably valuable to a developing child. And Rolfing can accomplish so much more, creating palpable change in the child’s connective tissue matrix.

Rolf bodywork is an effective means to address the everyday aches and pains of childhood development; as well as an illness or disease, such as cerebral palsy, scoliosis and brain injury in some persons. In research with the brain-injured child, Rolfing succeeded at addressing poor coordination, disorganized and immature movement and motor skill capability. Rolfing is a useful procedure to tone body muscles and assist proper functioning, improve language repoirtee and social responsiveness.

We cannot be overestimate how important it is especially for children, to understand this concept. We forget that childhood is charged with concerns and traumas, which the adult has survived and can only dimly recall, or perhaps has suppressed completely.”

Rolfing for children and babies addresses these concerns at an early age to give children and babies ease with their own bodies and to allow them to develop the confidence that they carry their own state of grace within them. As their lives are just beginning to unfold there is no way to separate the physical child from his mental and spiritual self. A child who slumps physically slumps mentally and emotionally. Conversely, a child whose body is balanced and who moves gracefully and confidently reflects an inner grace and confidence.